News Scanner

Wednesday February 18

Korora, a Linux distro based on Fedora, the community version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, just keeps getting better. When I reviewed Korora 19, released in July 2013, I said it had the potential to grow in popularity among users looking for a better, more user-friendly Linux distro that reaches beyond Fedora's enterprise appeal. The latest release, Korora 21, provides even more assurance of that statement's accuracy. Korora is packed with lots of additional packages besides those provided by the Fedora community.

For a limited time, AppleInsider has re-teamed with one of Apple's authorized resellers to offer an instant $50-$150 discounts on all configurations of Apple's new iMac with Retina 5K display, each of which now also comes with a free 3-Year AppleCare Protection Plan, a free Canon PIXMA all-in-one printer, free expedited shipping (and no sales tax collected in 48 states).

iPhone owners finding it difficult to connect with their peers through the tetrahydrocannabinolic haze have a new option with High There, a Tinder-like matchmaking app that specializes in bringing together users with a penchant for bud.

Welcome to the second installment of the revamped Happy Hour podcast. Today we’re talking all about cars. Apple cars. Do they exist? Well, that’s anyone’s guess at this point, but there are a lot of details that line up for this to become a possibility. The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed…

Heaven for a hardcore graphic artist or photo editor is a Wacom Cintiq, one of those fancy input devices that builds in a display and includes a pen stylus for drawing, painting, or retouching photos. They’re amazing, but they’re pricey and not the most mobile.

What if graphic artists on a shoestring could simply use their iPads, at a fraction of the cost and with glorious portability? Astro-HQ wants to make that possible with software that transforms an iPad into a Mac graphics tablet. Founders Giovanni Donelli and Matt Ronge are even former Apple engineers.

Apple has been awarded a patent for a virtual reality headset that can use an iPhone or iPod as a display. The abstract describes a device similar to the Gear VR, which weds a Samsung Note smartphone to a headpiece designed by Oculus. In its description of the patent, Apple explains that the head-mounted display system would allow users to couple and decouple a portable electronic device with a head-mounted device so the two devices would temporarily act as a single unit.

Here are some of the best free apps, app updates and new apps that have landed in the App Store recently. All app prices are USD and subject to change. Some deals may expire quickly, so grab them while you can.

Apps Now Free

Reminder:Widget+ [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $0.99] It can be accessed everywhere includes web browsers.
How beautiful it is! And it's simplicity and easiness! It is also integrated with other builtin apps gracefully.

Which is a good thing, as they have awesome weather and even better food.

Apple has removed Cuba from its restricted country list for foreign trade, reflecting the fact that some of its hardware and software are now legally eligible to be exported to the Caribbean country.

Apple’s new stance is in accordance with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which recently amended its Export Administration Regulations. The changes create an exception for Consumer Communication Devices, under a license entitled “Support For The Cuban People.”

In addition, the Cuban Asset Control Regulations were also updated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, authorizing export and reexports of items authorized by the BIS. The change to Apple’s policies was first noted by Collin Anderson.

Most of us will probably find it quite laughable when we look back at the promises of the paperless society that modern technology was supposed to usher in, considering that we’re surrounded by more paper than ever these days. Ultimately, if you’re looking for a paperless home or office, about the only way to deal with it is to take matters into your own hands, and Epson’s Perfection V19 ($70) is a nice affordable way to get started. Packing a handy set of scanning features into a small profile, flatbed scanner, this latest entry in the company’s Perfection lineup provides useful cloud-based scanning solutions, so you can even use it to scan directly to everything from Facebook to Evernote....

I've been a fan of the Weather Underground website since almost the first day it was available, so it's not surprising that I've become an even bigger fan of the apps that the company has created. Whether it's the self-named Weather Underground app, Wundermap (both free with in-app purchases) or my favorite on the iPad -- WunderStation (free) -- I find myself passing over most other weather applications and focusing on those from WU. Today, the company released a new universal iOS app called...

Following a five-year run in Detroit that saw him inexplicably chosen to oversee General Motors, longtime telecom executive Dan Akerson has elected to weigh on in Apple's possible entry into the carmaking arena, saying that Cupertino has "no idea what they're getting into."

Dropbox (free) — Dropbox tightens up its iOS integration a notch with a new iOS 8 Action Extension that will allow you to save files to your Dropbox from pretty much any other app. While Dropbox has had “Open In” support for quite a while — and still does — the Action Extension allows content to be saved to Dropbox even from apps that don’t traditionally support “Open In” such as the iOS Photos app. Due to the way…

In an amusing retaliation to Jony Ive’s opinion of Motorola’s Moto Maker, Motorola president described their company as a ‘different philosophy’ as well as directly attacking Apple’s product lineup, describing iPhone prices as ‘outrageous’ in a conversation with the BBC.

In the Ive profile by the New Yorker, the SVP of Design gave his scathing view of the Moto Maker system, which let customers choose any combination of colors and materials to customize their phones. Although Ive refused to call out Motorola by name, the intention is obvious.

As it has done quietly in past builds, Apple’s latest iOS 8.3 release makes improvements to its Siri voice assistant in the way of more natural sounding speech synthesis. The comparison above was sent in by a reader (thanks jk9357!), showing the improvements Apple has made to Siri’s voice in its latest iOS beta.

As noted by our tipsters, the change is particularly noticeable on the words “potato” and “America” in the comparison. You’ll hear iOS 8.1.1 first in the audio comparison followed by the new and improved iOS 8.3. The improvements come ahead of the Apple Watch launch, which relies heavily on Siri and could always benefit from enhanced speech technology.

Apple continues to expand the reach of its popular mobile payment system, with the Cupertino company rolling out support for cards from nearly two dozen additional financial institutions -- including major investment bank Morgan Stanley -- on Wednesday.

OneNote, Microsoft’s cross-platform application for taking and organizing notes, received a useful update on the Mac adding support for OCR, or optical character recognition. OneNote version 15.7.1, which is rolling out on the Mac App Store now, adds the ability to scan images from OneDrive notebooks for text.

Once OneNote’s OCR system has ran, you can actually copy the text and save it to your notes just like if it were a editable text file from the start. Searching images for text is currently possible for new images added to OneDrive notebooks, but a future version will make text search possible on existing images as well.

The update also includes the ability to toggle viewing authors and closing the window without quitting the app. Microsoft also...

In today’s iLounge Deal we’re offering you a rare opportunity to get 8 award-winning Mac apps at one great price in The Ultra-Premium Mac Bundle. For only $44.99, you can pick up fully licensed copies of ScreenFlow 5, Things 2, Data Rescue 4, ExpanDrive 4, AfterShot Pro 2, Typed, Snapselect, and Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth. That’s a savings of over $400, or 90% off the price of purchasing each of these great apps…

iWalk's Extreme Trio 10,000 ($85) is a universal battery with built-in Lightning and micro-USB charging cables. Using these two cables and an additional output port with a separate cable, Extreme Trio has the ability to charge three devices simultaneously, at a max total output of 3.4A. Notably, the battery contains a backlit LCD display which shows users output charging speeds, total battery life remaining, and the amount of time remaining to recharge the pack. As noted in the name, Extreme Trio is a 10000 mAh battery; a 6000 mAh version of the battery sells for $15 less. The battery also comes with a micro-USB cable.{/exp:char_limit}...

For years, Android users have dealt with apps on Google’s mobile platform that look more like they were designed for iOS. In recent months, Google has been giving iOS users a taste of the same experience. On Tuesday, Google updated its iOS app for Play Music with the company’s new Material Design aesthetic—and more importantly, added an iPad app for the first time.

Apple’s Canadian HQ used to be located in a 78,000 square foot building on the outskirts of Toronto, but the company has recently moved into a smaller downtown location as it looks for a tenant to take over its previous headquarters for the country, according to sources close to the situation.

It’s unclear if the seemingly smaller location, located at 120 Bremner Boulevard Suite 1600, will be the new Canadian HQ for Apple, but sources say the company is already in the process of selling its old headquarters located at 7495 Birchmount Road in Markham, Ontario through DTZ Property Services.

While Apple’s old property included around 40,000 square feet of office space alongside over 36,000 sq ft of warehouse, it’s unclear if the new corporate address at 120 Bremner, which...

The second wave of the month for new banks and credit unions supporting Apple Pay is happening now adding to the more than 60 institutions already supporting Apple’s mobile payment service. The mid-February wave includes 19 additional banks and credit unions bringing the total to more than 80 institutions. Here are the new banks listed as supporting Apple Pay as of today:Affinity Federal Credit Union
Cabela’s CLUB
Central Bank
Credit Union of Southern California
Farmers & Merchants Bank of Long Beach
First National Bank of Omaha
First Sentry Bank
FirstBank
Grow Financial Federal Credit Union
Ideal Credit Union
Morgan Stanley
Redwood Credit Union
State Department Federal Credit Union
Teachers Credit Union...

On the surface, the most noticeable difference is the refreshed UI, which is cleaner and more colorful. Under the hood, users will appreciate the new iOS sharing options, which allow you to send content to your Trello boards without opening the Trello app. With this feature, you can view an image in the Photos apps and send it to Trello in just a few taps.

Lastly, users will find a Today widget that’ll display your important tasks in the Today tab of the notification center and support for Handoff so you can move your work from your iPad to your Mac without missing a beat.

The unspoken failure of Google's Glass has not deterred Sony from forging ahead with its own face-attached augmented reality device, and interested early adopters can now place a pre-order for their own set of "SmartEyeglass Developer Edition" eyewear for delivery in March.

Current rumors have it that the forthcoming 12-inch MacBook Air — which is widely believed to include a high-resolution Retina display and vastly-reduced I/O — could also sport a Touch ID sensor positioned above its trackpad, according to Taiwanese blog AppleCorner, which has cited supply chain sources. In addition, the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad may be updated to include the biometric functionality.

That could be a prelude to making Apple Pay available for payments on the web. Currently, Apple Pay can only be used for in-store transactions via NFC or as part of the checkout process for iOS apps.

Such an expansion would put Apple Pay in direct competition with web checkout providers like PayPal and Amazon Payments, while opening a major new market. PayPal, currently an eBay subsidiary, is preparing to...

In an industry first, RBS and NatWest will be the inaugural apps in the U.K. to add Touch ID support to their iPhone apps, allowing users to securely log into their accounts with the use of their fingertip.

Apple may have a few roadblocks before it can get Apple Pay into the Chinese marketplace.

As introduction efforts proceed, China’s central bank, UnionPay bank-card service and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. are standing up to Apple’s effort to bring the Apple Pay no-card-no-cash payment system to iPhone users in China.

At the same time, Apple has not yet “acknowledged regulators,” and as a result, “it’s unclear whether the product meets the government’s requirements” for a commercial operation.

Apple is also struggling with its relationship with UnionPay, China’s state-owned credit- and debit-card system operator. Sources close to the companies said that talks aimed at an agreement that would open China to Apple Pay have stalled.

The central bank official who asked not to be named said regulators have not intervened in negotiations between Apple and...

Staples was an early adopter of Apple Pay, adding support for the mobile payment service at launch. The retailer accepts Apple Pay in stores and via its iOS app. While use of Apple Pay in stores is slow, the mobile payment service is a big hit among iOS app users, accounting for 30 percent of purchases made in Staples iOS app. This figure was confirmed Prat Vemana, VP of mobile commerce for Staples, and reported by Fierce Mobile.

“Right now it’s the number one payment method for us in our iOS apps,” said Prat Vemana, vice president of mobile commerce for Staples, speaking during a panel discussion hosted by Chetan Sharma Consulting in Seattle on Tuesday. Vemana said that 30 percent of purchases made in the Staples iOS apps use Apple Pay.

Welcome to a new edition of Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, your weekly guide to the best and worst of gadgets that have just rolled off the production line for the first time or have the proverbial ink still drying on their press releases. On our conveyor belt this week are a gas-powered portable charger, a clever key fob, a flash drive for secret keepers and a pocket ghost detector. Please note that these are not reviews. The rating scores reflect only my interest in trying each item, and matter about as much as, well...you decide.

Two UK banks–Royal Bank of Scotland and Nat West–are now allowing customers to login to their mobile banking apps using Touch ID, reports the BBC. The updated RBS app is expected to hit today, with the Nat West one following tomorrow.

RBS and NatWest customers must activate the feature with their security information, but would only need to use Apple’s Touch ID thereafter.

The banks–owned by the same parent company–said that use of Touch ID is subject to a number of security safeguards …

First, customers choose whether or not to activate fingerprint login, and have to use their existing login details to do so. Second, Touch ID would be disabled after three failed attempts, customers having to use...

Staples has revealed that Apple Pay is now the most popular form of payment in its iOS app, used for 30% of purchases made using the app. Apple Pay also appears to have driven new sales, with almost two-thirds of those transactions being from first-time Stapes customers, reveals FierceMobileIT.

“Apple Pay has been one of the most successful implementations when it comes to payments. […] Right now it’s the number one payment method for us in our iOS apps,” said Prat Vemana, vice president of mobile commerce for Staples.

Vemana also revealed that while Staples has both iOS and Android apps, with usage split pretty evenly between the two, Apple owners are more profitable, generating 70% of mobile purchases … ...

In recent weeks, I’ve written about protecting data stored locally on a hard drive, against both people with physical access and potential remote attacks. But your data is much more vulnerable in transit, as it passes between end points or via servers.

This problem is effectively solved for instant messages with iMessage, which uses strong end-to-end encryption designed in such a way that—Apple says—not even they can decrypt your messages. This is accomplished by creating local encryption keys through a process that can’t be reverse-engineered on their side. Even though iMessages pass through intermediate points on the Internet, there’s no opportunity for others to grab the plain text, images, and audio within. (The same is true with FaceTime audio and video.)

Tuesday February 17

NBC has followed in ABC’s footsteps and released an update for its iOS app that introduces live streaming of the network’s content directly to an iPhone or iPad. Similarly to ABC’s offering, the feature is only available in a few select cable markets that this time and requires a subscription to a cable or satellite partner.

Apple Pay's in-app purchasing capability is often overshadowed by its physical iPhone-powered NFC counterpart, but for big-box office supply chain Staples, the feature has quickly become the most popular method of payment processed by the company's iOS app.

Apple has asked its suppliers in Asia to make a combined five to
six million units of its three Apple Watch models during the first
quarter ahead of the product’s release in April, according to
people familiar with the matter.

I would wager — heavily — that these numbers come from supply chain sources, not Apple executives. I can’t see why anyone at Apple would see a strategic advantage to leaking these numbers, especially the split between Sport, regular, and Edition models:

Half of the first-quarter production order is earmarked for the
entry-level Apple Watch Sport model, while the mid-tied Apple
Watch is expected to account for one-third of output, one of these
people said.

Georgia Congressman John Lewis took a tour of Apple’s headquarters with CEO Tim Cook today. Lewis is in town to promote his new graphic novel focusing on the civil rights movement, March: Book Two. Cook tweeted the photo with Lewis above earlier tonight.

Georgia congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis was a guest speaker at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., on Tuesday, where he touted his new graphic novel and talked one-on-one with CEO Tim Cook in a closed door meeting.

Kaspersky Lab on Tuesday announced the discovery of what may be the most sophisticated malware ever. The malware's creators, whom Kaspersky has dubbed "The Equation Group," use a never-seen-before tactic to infect hard drives' firmware. The technique "makes traditional antivirus and antimalware software practically useless," said Protegrity VP of Products Yigal Rozenberg. Most of the attacks hit Windows PCs, although Mac OS X users in China also have been hit, and iOS is vulnerable as well.

mpicpp sends word of a patent newly awarded to Apple, #8,957,835, which describes a head-mounted apparatus that uses an iPhone (or iPod) as a display. The device "temporarily integrates or merges both mechanically and electronically a head-mounted device with a portable electronic device." It sounds a bit like Samsung's Gear VR headset, and many outlets are reporting it as being a virtual reality device. However, the patent itself doesn't mention VR, and it was filed in 2008, long before the VR rush of the past few years. That said, Apple has recently been trying to hire engineers with experience developing VR-related software, so it's something they could be evaluating.

Apple's flagship products led the pack in the 2015 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index from brand research consultancy Brand Keys, with the iPhone, iPad, MacBook and Beats headphones all considered leaders in their respective categories.

Chromecast support in VLC will allow users to stream their stored media to their TVs from supported devices, including iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Android devices and computers running Windows are also expected to get the upgrade....

It's time to save some of your hard-earned money with our Daily Deals, featuring exclusive deals for AWT readers, hardware discounts and our own handpicked iOS and OS X sales. All prices are USD and subject to change. Please check prices before you purchase as some deals may expire quickly.

AWT's Daily Deals

Simon 4.0 [OS X; On sale for $49.00, down from $99.00] AppleWorld.Today is pleased to offer an exclusive deal on Simon 4.0 by Dejal Systems. Simon is a robust site monitoring tool for OS X that checks servers for changes or failures and notifies you when a change is detected. The app sends a notification via email, sound, speech, Twitter, or a variety of other means.

The native Mac utility can be used to monitor both your own website and servers as well as external sites. You can use it to track your...

Sony's SmartEyeglass Developer Edition SED-E1 will be available generally next month in the United States, the UK, Germany and Japan. The smart glasses -- Sony's first -- also will be released in March to business customers in France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. Sony's SmartEyeglass, priced at $840, resembles a regular pair of eyeglasses with a sporty black frame design. It features a transparent 8-bit display screen that allows the wearer to read emails and other notifications pushed from a compatible device.

Five months after Macworld shipped its last print magazine in September, senior editor and Mac guru Chris Breen on Tuesday announced he will soon leave the publication to take on an unannounced role at Apple.

It will probably not come as a great surprise to learn that Apple won in a number of categories for 2015 customer satisfaction survey. The study, conducted by market research brand keys, also gave Apple subsidiary Beats an award as well. [...]

Our congratulations go out to Chris Breen, a fixture in the world of Apple journalism over the past few decades at both Macworld and MacUser. Breen made the word official on his personal blog, saying "Just a note to say that I’ve left Macworld to work for a Cupertino-based technology company you may be familiar with."

Breen's departure comes after parent company IDG laid off a number of employees in September of 2014, shuttering the 30-year-old Macworld magazine and leaving a much smaller staff in place at its home on the web.

With his move to Apple -- where his new position is unknown -- Breen is giving up his life as a well-known writer, podcaster, and musician:

As part of this change I’ll be leaving the public stage as Chris Breen Technology Guy (though I may still pop up as Chris Breen Musician Guy at a saloon near you). When the mood strikes I’ll continue...

Just a note to say that I’ve left Macworld to work for a Cupertino-based technology company you may be familiar with.

There are loads of reasons for the change, but blend them together and they add up to my desire to try something different before I don the large shorts and spend the bulk of my remaining days looking for my misplaced spectacles.

“Chris has been such an essential staff member that the word “essential” seems woefully inadequate to describe him,” wrote Macworld’s Susie Ochs....

A fresh report from research firm IDC published on Tuesday found Apple's share of the Chinese smartphone market nearly doubled over the fourth quarter of 2014, while rival Samsung saw its share further deteriorate as competing Android makers gained ground with low-cost device alternatives.

Accessing a Mac’s rear-facing ports can be a hassle, particularly when you’re using short cables. To eliminate that issue, Moshi’s original iLynx combined four USB 2.0 and two FireWire 400 ports into a triangular hub designed primarily to sit in front of an iMac. Later, a cosmetically near-identical sequel called iLynx 800 modestly updated the accessory by updating the ports to FireWire 800.

With FireWire dead and USB 3.0 growing in popularity, there’s a new iLynx in town. iLynx 3 ($60) drops FireWire entirely in favor of an all-USB approach, relying on a combination of USB and wall power to connect up to four devices to your Mac....

For users who rely on the Apple Maps app for in-car navigation, Apple snuck a handy feature into iOS 7.1. While getting voice navigation prompts has never been a problem if you’re already listening to music from your iPhone, users who prefer to listen to the radio or some other audio source normally had a problem hearing audio prompts through their in-car system. If you’re running iOS 7.1 or later, however, and have a supported in-car…

Apple has asked suppliers to manufacture five to six million units of its upcoming Apple Watch for the product’s first run, The Wall Street Journal reports. Half of that total will be made up of the lower-end Apple Watch Sport, which will start at $349. A third of the production will be dedicated to the mid-tier model, with the remaining amount — about a sixth of the initial total, based on these figures — to be the high-end Apple Watch…

According to the latest numbers from IDC, Xiaomi—the rising star of the smartphone industry—has managed to pass up Samsung in China. In 2013, Xiaomi trailed Samsung’s almost 19% market share by a solid 13 percentage points (at just 5.3%), and was only the 5th largest maker of smartphones in China. Things changed in 2014. Last year, Xiaomi finished off with 12.5% of the market, almost a half-point more than Samsung at 12.1%, taking the top spot and passing not just Samsung, but Lenovo, Huawei, and Coolpad as well.

Interestingly, though, the latest numbers also show that Apple’s launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus contributed to a decent size dent in both Samsung and Xiaomi’s market footprint in Q4 of last year....

If you haven’t caught this week’s Mac 911 yet, I’ve got a bit of a spoiler for a column that typically isn’t something you can spoil. Macworld’s esteemed senior editor, Chris Breen, is leaving us. The rest of the staff and I are, of course, incredibly bummed. But we’re also very happy for him, since he’s departing in order to take a job at a certain computer company in Cupertino. They’re very lucky to have him.

Chris has been such an essential staff member that the word “essential” seems woefully inadequate to describe him. From hosting and producing the Macworld Podcast and ultra-useful weekly Macworld Video, to answering your burning questions in the Mac 911 column, to expertly evaluating Apple products...

A pair of Silicon Valley heavyweights updated their popular iOS apps on Tuesday, with Dropbox allowing users to upload files via iOS 8's sharing menu and Google unveiling a redesigned, universal version of its Play Music app.

There's an update to the Dropbox iOS app today that adds the ability to "save files straight to Dropbox from your favorite apps."

The update also provides some bug fixes and improvements mainly related to moving and deleting files, printing, exporting, and how RTF previews are handled, but the action extension is perhaps the most welcome addition to the app.

Provided that the app you're working with uses the standard iOS share menu, you can save files to your main Dropbox folder or select a specific folder in which to save the document. Once the destination has been selected, a tap on a Save button uploads the file and a progress bar shows how the upload is going.

Our take on the news: This is a surprisingly powerful update, since it's no longer necessary to authenticate a Dropbox account with a third-party app if it...

Engage Customer reported an astonishing statistic last week -- 54% of all email in the UK is opened on an Apple device, while only 8% is opened on Android devices and that number is falling quickly. The data comes from SendGrid, which analyzed millions of emails opened during 10-day periods at the start of 2014 and 2015.

According to the data, France, Germany, Spain and Italy are all seeing similar trends -- 47% of emails in France and Spain are opened on Apple devices, 50% in Italy, and 46% in Germany.

Oddly enough, BlackBerry showed a year-to-year increase of 20% in terms of email opens on a device platform. It's assumed that privacy concerns have made the company's email platform more attractive. Nokia saw a huge drop in the number of emails...

A scathing critique of Michael Bromwich, the lawyer overseeing Apple after it lost an iBooks antitrust lawsuit, alleges that he has unfairly billed the company some $2.65 million for investigative practices that have gone well beyond the initial intent of his role.

Google this afternoon has begun rolling out a major update to the Play Music app on iOS. The update packs a handful of new features and enhancements, including a totally refreshed Material Design interface, and for the first time, an iPad optimized interface, as well.

Google touts that this update offers new album and artist description pages with a new, cleaner design as well as a more immersive Now Playing experience with album artwork taking up the entire display. Perhaps most notably, there is also now an iPad-specifc design for Play Music...

When the new Office for iOS apps launched, the only way to sync files across multiple devices was to store them in Microsoft's own OneDrive service. In November, Microsoft and Dropbox partnered up, giving the third-party service most of the same features as OneDrive (absent real-time collaborative editing).

Today, a new update for the iOS apps added support for iCloud Drive, the cloud storage platform Apple introduced last fall alongside OS X Yosemite. If you're signed into iCloud on your iPad or iPhone, you'll automatically be able to view, search, open, and edit your documents through iOS' native iCloud Drive file picker.

If you prefer to use other cloud storage platforms, this new update also adds support for the ...

Can you guess the price of the gold Apple Watch? There has been a lot of speculation about how much the 42mm and 38mm versions of the 18-karat AppleWatch Edition will cost, but we wanted to poll the 9to5Mac community to see where everyone stands. Put your guess in the comments, vote using the polls below, and we’ll check back in April to point fingers, etc.

Apple should hold a Price is Right contest for the gold Watch. Winner gets a free one.

We do have some clues about how much it might cost: We reported recently that Apple Stores are being prepped with jewelry store-style touches for the Apple Watch launch, including safes that will store the expensive 18-karat gold Watch...

Redesigning its flagship product has not been enough to keep Typo out of BlackBerry's line of fire, as the Canadian smartphone maker has once again filed suit alleging that the second-generation Typo "slavishly copied" BlackBerry's own keyboard designs.

Sometimes you have to slim down your feature list to make a shipping date.

An interesting piece by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Apple may have cut multiple planned health features to allow the first generation of the Apple Watch to ship on time.

The report states that the features would have contained an array of sensors to help measure a wearer’s health, albeit the first demo units of the wearable device apparently showed no such sensors in that model.

Some of those features, like the ability to track stress and blood pressure, were simply too complex to institute, or ran the risk of triggering government regulation that the company wanted to avoid. In other cases, sensor makers weren’t able to meet Apple’s standards.

The article also states that the sensors’ performance was very inconsistent, with a host of new and unpredictable variables that ranged...

Dropbox for iPhone and iPad users is getting a lot more powerful today as the latest version includes a new action extension for iOS 8. This allows you to save information from various apps to Dropbox on iOS without having to open the cloud-syncing app.

For example, you can send photos directly to Dropbox from the iOS Photos app making uploading images to the cloud service much easier than before. You can also use the new action extension to save text files to Dropbox but entries you create in the iOS Notes app. For files you come across on the...

While the reason behind Apple's acquisition of PrimeSense remains unknown, the Cupertino company was awarded a PrimeSense patent on Tuesday describing 3D camera system allowing for an entirely new type of virtual keyboard.

Apple Watch has been in development since 2011, but health-tracking sensors haven’t improved enough in the last four years to make Apple’s wearable an essential fitness accessory. So Apple is reportedly launching Apple Watch with more limited health and fitness capabilities than the company had initially wanted.

When Apple Watch was first conceived, the company’s higher-ups dreamed of a health-focused wearable that would go beyond heart-rate monitoring to track blood pressure, stress levels, and other metrics. That didn’t quite pan out, according to a Tuesday report in the Wall Street Journal. Sensor setbacks and the threat of regulatory holdups have effectively watered down the first-generation Apple Watch’s health-first focus, so Apple is repositioning the wearable as a multifunctional device.

Hello!
I have a SAN deployd on a TV Station in Brazil, they are using Mac OS 10.8.5, with two redundant MDC's (two MacPro) with about 20 clients all running 10.8.5 as well.
About a week ago, the MDC2 show a little yellow triangle with the following message: The Volume Is not Running On MDC2.
The volume is up and running on all controllers and clients.

In the episode, Claire Dunphy (played by Julie Bowen) is stuck at an airport and wants to talk to her daughter Haley (Sarah Hyland) for reconciliation after a fight. The entire story revolves around the screen of Claire's MacBook, with her using all the means at her disposal to try to reach her daughter.

For authenticity, the entire episode was shot with an iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2 tablets. The Mac screen, however, needed to be rendered so that it...

I prefer to start iPhone case reviews with a photo showing the iPhone within a case, so you can immediately see how your device would look inside. For Speck’s new iPhone 6 Plus versions of the super-popular CandyShell, I’m doing something different, because the magic here is hidden inside the case. CandyShell’s one-piece, co-molded design — textured rubber inside with hard plastic outside — has been copied (and admired within the accessory industry) more than almost any case feature in the past five years. With military-grade drop protection and the ability to absorb scratches, CandyShells are the cases I’ve historically used to keep all of my personal iPhones in perfect shape, and I’ve loved them.

That changed with the iPhone 6 Plus. Until now, Speck didn’t have a plain old version of CandyShell available, so I switched over to...

Apple may be planning an expansion of its Touch ID fingerprint authentication technology to its portable computers and peripherals in advance of a larger Apple Pay rollout, according to a Tuesday report out of Taiwan.

Following a US District Judge in San Francisco ordering Typo to pay BlackBerry $860,000, the Ryan Seacrest-backed company now faces another suit from the Canadian smartphone maker for continuing to sell its iPhone case with an integrated hardware keyboard.

The Hollywood Reporter says that BlackBerry has filed a new complaint against Typo in California this week claiming the company’s latest products “slavishly copied…down to the smallest detail, including the layout of the keyboard itself, the shapes of the keys, and the surface sculpting of the keys.”

Google acquired the popular email client Sparrow back in 2012 and announced that the entire team would be joining Google to work on Gmail. Since that acquisition, Sparrow apps received only a handful of updates and have been seemingly neglected in favor of Google’s new Inbox initiative. Over the past few days, however, Sparrow appears to have received the final nail in its coffin as it has been removed from both the Mac App Store and iOS App Store (via TechCrunch).

The last time the $2.99 email app appeared in the iOS App Store was February 12th, while the $9.99 Mac app was last available on...

Here are some of the best free apps, app updates and new apps that have landed in the App Store recently. All app prices are USD and subject to change. Some deals may expire quickly, so grab them while you can.

Apps Now Free

Sizer [iPhone; Now free, down from $1.99] Sizer application can help you to choose the right size of clothes in the U.S., Europe, the U.K., Japan or Russia.

HDR Basics HD [iPad; Now free, down from $5.99] Learn how to create stunning HDR photos using the world leading HDR software Photomatix.

Apple is moving forward with advanced plans for Phase 2 of its ambitious Campus 2 project, including testing workshops and research and development facilities with enough room to develop and test new products the size of an automobile.

When Apple develops a new technology or feature for its hardware, it typically rolls it out on one product then expands it to the rest of the line. For example, Touch ID launched for the iPhone in 2013 and made its way to the iPad with the iPad Air 2 in 2014. For 2015, Touch ID may make its debut on the Mac, according to a rumor from website apple.club.tw. According to the blog, which published legitimate photos of iPad Air 2 Touch ID and A8X chip components last fall, Touch ID will come to Macs this year to enable Apple Pay functionality…

The Apple Watch that Apple showed off at its September event has a few fitness features. It can track the number of steps you've taken, whether you've been standing or sitting, and the number of calories you've burned. It uses a combination of an accelerometer, heart rate sensor, and your iPhone's GPS to track this data, and its functionality as a fitness gadget is mostly related to the way and catalogues and sets goals based on that data.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Apple's original plans for the watch included other sensors that provided more detailed data. A sensor that "measured the conductivity of skin" to "gauge stress" and track heart rate was axed because it didn't work consistently. Dry skin, hairy arms, and the tightness of the watch on the wrist all affected the accuracy of the sensor. A more conventional...

Agile Tortoise's Tally 2 for iPhone and iPad (universal, free with in-app purchase) is a no-look, incremental counter app that's simple and useful. It does one thing, really -- count up or down -- in a super simple manner. I can think of two perfect uses for Tally 2, but first let's look at this update.

Using Tally 2

Tally 2 is beyond simple to use. You'll start by creating a new "tally." Tap the hash marks in the upper left-hand corner to bring up the Tallies screen. Then, tap the "+", again in the upper left. That's it. Tap the "<" in the upper right to get counting.

Now, whenever you need to add a point of data, just tap the screen. An audible "pop" confirms that the app has recorded the data, so you can concentrate on what you're recording, and not the device's screen. That's really handy, especially in one of the scenarios I'll describe later.

Taylor Swift announced last night that she is making the bonus tracks from her insanely popular newest album ‘1989’ available on iTunes. This morning, Swift released the first bonus track, “Wonderland” on iTunes, with two more still to come. “You Are In Love” is the next bonus track on the album and was produced by Jack Antonoff of Bleachers and ‘fun.’ fame. The third bonus single still to come is entitled “New Romantics.”

Previously, these three tracks had been available on a Target-exclusive deluxe edition of 1989 and in select countries outside of the...

An upcoming episode of the popular ABC show Modern Family will take place entirely on a MacBook as the characters use FaceTime and other services to communicate, as noted by Recode:

The episode revolves around Claire Dunphy, a working mother of three played by Julie Bowen, who is stuck in an airport and desperate to reach her daughter, Haley, to reconcile after a fight. The story plays out on her Macbook, as she employs all the forms of modern communication at her disposal, from email to FaceTime to Facebook, in an attempt to locate her eldest child, played by Sarah Hyland.

Not only will the upcoming episode take place on a MacBook screen, the report adds that it “was shot entirely with Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2 tablets.”

We learned last fall that Apple plans to bring Apple Pay to China by partnering with UnionPay. Code found within iOS pointed to Apple preparing its mobile payment service for China while MarketWatch reported Apple was working on a deal with the institution. Several months later, however, MarketWatch now reports that Apple is “struggling with its relationship with UnionPay,” adding that Apple has not yet established an agreement it hoped to reach by March.

The report also describes security concerns from regulators in China over Apple Pay as reasons for its international roll...

A forthcoming episode of hit television comedy Modern Family puts Apple's iOS and OS X communication services -- notably iMessage and FaceTime -- front and center, with the production crew shooting footage exclusively on the iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2.

A recent update of Microsoft’s Office for iOS now includes support for iCloud.

Microsoft’s vaunted word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps now use iCloud as a document storage provider. Documents can be opened, edited, and saved directly to and from the service for users on iOS 8.

The update comes just over three months after Microsoft overhauled the suite to allow users to create and edit documents without an Office365 subscription. Those new versions used Dropbox as a backend storage provider, and also brought the suite to the iPhone.

Microsoft brought Office to the iPad last March after years of stop-and-start development. In January, the company added Outlook, based on technology acquired from former top-selling iOS...

This goes into the category of “man, it’s long, but you’ve got to read it”.

An article on Ars Technica discusses the Equation Group, a group of hackers that had an incredible amount of success, were able to use revolutionary methods in their work and may have been embedded within the National Security Agency.

In addition to the findings, researchers within the Kaspersky Group found “redirects that sent iPhone users to unique exploit Web pages. In addition, infected machines reporting to Equation Group command servers identified themselves as Macs, an indication that the group successfully compromised both iOS and OS X devices.”

So, not even Apple’s protocols were safe thanks to a group that had access to all the coolest toys and may have been embedded within the NSA for 14 years.

It’s a rough world out there where security is concerned, but definitely read the article...

Users of Microsoft's mobile productivity suite for iOS have new storage and synchronization options for documents, following an update to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that adds support for Apple's iCloud.

Apple and its suppliers are gearing up for the debut of the Apple Watch in April, with the company reportedly ordering between 5 million and 6 million units with prices ranging from $349 to thousands of dollars.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple was forced to abandon some of the advanced health functions of its Watch product. The Watch originally was designed to "measure blood pressure, heart activity and stress levels, among other things." Those plans changed when sensor technology limitations made it difficult to implement these features in a watch form factor

Development languished because much of the health-sensor technology failed to meet Apple’s standards, these people said. ...These features were shelved for the first version of the watch, but they may be included in future models, the people familiar with the matter said.

Encryption has received a lot of attention lately as a solution to the growing data-breach problem, but one of the hang-ups dogging the technology has been its ability to play nice in the cloud. That's especially true if an organization wants to control the keys by which its data is scrambled and use cloud services beyond simple storage. For example, if a cloud provider can't decrypt a client's data, it could break the provider's antivirus, data loss prevention, file preview function and text indexing, as well as pose performance challenges.

In the picture above, I am holding a Macintosh Portable, the spiritual ancestor of the MacBook Air. Well, that’s what I’m holding in my left hand; in my right, for reasons which will shortly become clear, I’m holding a sack of potatoes.

Yes, the Macintosh Portable is the spiritual ancestor of the MacBook Air in that it took everything that was great about the Mac and made it portable, and it’s even true that the basic recipe of a screen, keyboard, pointing device, battery, CPU, and storage all wrapped up in a clamshell design is common to both—but the difference in weight is staggering. That’s an apt adjective, too, since unless you’re prepared for it, if someone hands you a Macintosh Portable you are apt to stagger a little as your center of gravity shifts unexpectedly.

Monday February 16

According to a report late Monday, Apple is looking to expand Apple Pay operations into China, but the company may face an uphill battle as partnership talks with state-owned credit card operator UnionPay have stalled.

In designing its first wearable device in the Apple Watch, Apple looked to incorporate a variety of highly advanced health functions with an eye on creating a holistic monitoring device, but ultimately scrapped those plans due to technological and regulatory hurdles.

PCalc is a full-featured, scriptable scientific calculator with support for hexadecimal, octal, and binary calculations, as well as an RPN mode, programmable functions, and an extensive set of unit... Read more

FileZilla 3.10.2 - Fast and reliable FTP...

FileZilla (ported from Windows) is a fast and reliable FTP client and server with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface.
Version 3.10.2:
Note: Now requires a 64-bit Intel processor.... Read more

The Hit List 1.1.11 - Advanced reminder...

The Hit List manages the daily chaos of your modern life. It's easy to learn - it's as easy as making lists. And it's powerful enough to let you plan, then forget, then act when the time is right.... Read more

Bartender 1.2.32 - Organize your menu ba...

Bartender lets you organize your menu bar apps.
Features:
Lets you tidy your menu bar apps how you want.
See your menu bar apps when you want.
Hide the apps you need to run, but do not need to... Read more

ClamXav 2.7.5 - Free virus checker, base...

ClamXav is a free virus checker for OS X. It uses the tried, tested, and very popular ClamAV open source antivirus engine as a back end.
I hope you like and use ClamXav a lot and that it helps keep... Read more

xScope 4.1.2 - Onscreen graphic measurem...

xScope is powerful set of tools that are ideal for measuring, inspecting, and testing on-screen graphics and layouts. Its tools float above your desktop windows and can be accessed via a toolbar,... Read more

MacFamilyTree 7.3.3 - Create and explore...

MacFamilyTree gives genealogy a facelift: it's modern, interactive, incredibly fast, and easy to use. We're convinced that generations of chroniclers would have loved to trade in their genealogy... Read more

Skype 7.5.0.738 - Voice-over-internet ph...

Skype allows you to talk to friends, family and co-workers across the Internet without the inconvenience of long distance telephone charges. Using peer-to-peer data transmission technology, Skype... Read more

PushPal 3.0 - Mirror Android notificatio...

PushPal is a client for Pushbullet, which automatically shows you all of your phone's notifications right on your computer. This means you can see who's calling or read text messages even if your... Read more

At this point it’s pretty safe to say that no MOBA is going to dethrone Dota 2 and League of Legends anytime soon. After all, if Batman can’t do it, nobody can. However, with a genre as popular and profitable as this one, there’s still room for... | Read more »

Final February Fun at 148Apps
How do you know what apps are worth your time and money? Just look to the review team at 148Apps. We sort through the chaos and find the apps you’re looking for. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out... | Read more »

GDC 2015 – Does Not Commute is Definitel...

GDC 2015 – Does Not Commute is Definitely a Game You Should Keep an Eye on
Posted by Rob Rich on March 2nd, 2015 [ permalink ]
We were teased about Mediocre Games’ (Smash Hit,
| Read more »

F84 Games & POW! Announce Stan Lee V...

F84 Games has announced that it is working with legendary comic creator Stan Lee and POW! Entertainment to produce Stan Lee’s Hero Command. The game will be a action adventure of heroic proportions.
| Read more »

Setlyst Keeps Your Set Straight So You C...

Setlyst Keeps Your Set Straight So You Can Focus On Rocking Out.
Posted by Jessica Fisher on March 2nd, 2015 [ permalink ]
Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
| Read more »

Space is Vast, So Space Agency Has a Vas...

Space is Vast, So Space Agency Has a Vast New Update!
Posted by Jessica Fisher on March 2nd, 2015 [ permalink ]
Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
| Read more »

Size DOES Matter Review

Size DOES Matter Review
By Campbell Bird on March 2nd, 2015
Our Rating: :: HARD TO BEATUniversal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
This rhythm game has a unique control scheme and performance system that make it feel like a true... | Read more »

The first ever action 3D card battler Al...

On the other hand, you probably haven’t played an action 3D card battler – until now. Step forward, All Star Legion.
All Star Legion is a 3D QTE-based action RPG card battler, but fear not – the game itself isn’t as convoluted as its description.... | Read more »

Travel Back to the 1980s With the Making...

Headup Games has released a hilarious making of video for its upcoming title, Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic. The game is a RPG/Roguelike where you control three heroes set to save the township of Pixton from an evil cult called The Sons of Dawn.... | Read more »

Price Scanner via MacPrices.net

Sale! 15-inch 2.2GHz Retina MacBook Pro for $...

Best Buy has the 15″ 2.2GHz Retina MacBook Pro on sale for $1774.99 $1799.99, or $225 off MSRP. Choose free home shipping or free local store pickup (if available). Price valid for online orders... Read more

27-inch 3.5GHz 5K iMac in stock today and on...

B&H Photo has the 27″ 3.5GHz 5K iMac in stock today and on sale for $2299 including free shipping plus NY sales tax only. Their price is $200 off MSRP, and it’s the lowest price available for... Read more

Apple Launches Free Web-Based Pages and Other...

Apple’s new Web-only access to iWork productivity apps is a free level of iCloud service available to anyone, including people who don’t own or use Apple devices. The service includes access to Apple... Read more

Survey Reveals Solid State Disk (SSD) Technol...

In a recent SSD technology use survey, Kroll Ontrack, a firm specializing in data recovery, found that while nearly 90 percent of respondents leverage the performance and reliability benefits of SSD... Read more

Save up to $600 with Apple refurbished Mac Pr...

The Apple Store is offering Apple Certified Refurbished Mac Pros for up to $600 off the cost of new models. An Apple one-year warranty is included with each Mac Pro, and shipping is free. The... Read more

Apple CEO Tim Cook will deliver the George Washington University’s Commencement address to GWU grads on May 17, at which time he will also be awarded an honorary doctorate of public service from the... Read more

Apple restocks refurbished Mac minis for up t...

The Apple Store has restocked Apple Certified Refurbished 2014 Mac minis, with models available starting at $419. Apple’s one-year warranty is included with each mini, and shipping is free:
- 1.4GHz... Read more

Walmart has the 16GB iPad Air 2 WiFi on sale for $446.99 on their online store for a limited time. Choose free shipping or free local store pickup (if available). Sale price for online orders only,... Read more

Jobs Board

*Apple* Solutions Consultant - Retail Sales...

**Job Summary** As an Apple Solutions Consultant (ASC) you are the link between our customers and our products. Your role is to drive the Apple business in a retail
Read more

*Apple* Pay Automation Engineer - iOS System...

**Job Summary** At Apple , great ideas have a way of becoming great products, services, and customer experiences very quickly. Bring passion and dedication to your job
Read more

Sr. Technical Services Consultant, *Apple*...

**Job Summary** Apple Professional Services (APS) has an opening for a senior technical position that contributes to Apple 's efforts for strategic and transactional
Read more

Event Director, *Apple* Retail Marketing -...

…This senior level position is responsible for leading and imagining the Apple Retail Team's global engagement strategy and team. Delivering an overarching brand
Read more

*Apple* Pay - Site Reliability Engineer - Ap...

**Job Summary** Imagine what you could do here. At Apple , great ideas have a way of becoming great products, services, and customer experiences very quickly. Bring
Read more

MacTech is a registered trademark of Xplain Corporation. Xplain, "The journal of Apple technology", Apple Expo, Explain It, MacDev, MacDev-1, THINK Reference, NetProfessional, Apple Expo, MacTech Central, MacTech Domains, MacNews, MacForge, and the MacTutorMan are trademarks or service marks of Xplain Corporation. Sprocket is a registered trademark of eSprocket Corporation. Other trademarks and copyrights appearing in this printing or software remain the property of their respective holders. Not responsible for typographical errors.

All contents are Copyright 1984-2011 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.